Operators shut down the Unit 1 reactor at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant near Berwick early Saturday morning (3/25) to begin the unit's eighth refueling and maintenance outage.

"Refueling outages are important to continued performance excellence," said Herbert D. Woodeshick, special assistant to the president for Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., the plant's operator. "Effective outages help ensure that the plant is well maintained and can safely generate the maximum amount of electricity at the lowest cost for PP&L customers."

Susquehanna has a world record to its credit, and Unit 1 has a PP&L company record for continuous operation, as it enters this scheduled outage.

Both Susquehanna units generated electricity for 287 days dating back to June 1994. That's 36 days longer than the previous world record for two-unit plants of similar design.

Unit 1 operated for 427 consecutive days, surpassing the PP&L record by more than 100 days. It became the first Susquehanna unit to run without shutting down from the end of one refueling outage to the start of another.

During its run, Unit 1 generated 10.5 billion kilowatt-hours, or enough electricity to meet the yearly demand of 1 million homes. The unit produced 97 percent of the maximum possible amount of electricity it is capable of generating.

Recognizing how important effective outages are to plant safety and reliability, PP&L is taking new approaches to outage work, Woodeshick said.

"We are making greater use of safety criteria to change the sequence of outage activities both before and during the outage," he explained. "That shortens outage length and improves overall safety performance."

During the outage, about one-third of the unit's uranium fuel will be replaced. Also, work will be completed to increase the unit's power output by about 50,000 kilowatts. Similar work was done to increase the output of Unit 2 last year.

Unit 1 is expected to return to service in May.

PP&L schedules Susquehanna refueling outages in the spring and fall, when demand for electricity decreases. Each unit is taken out of service for refueling every 18 months. The next Unit 2 refueling will begin in September.

The Susquehanna plant, located in Luzerne County about five miles north of Berwick, is owned jointly by PP&L and Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc.